1.

I’ve always liked to
think of my hometown Cavonno as my private back yard: during adolescence I
would spend most of my days out of the house, either at high-school or in the
local cafés and bars or at the river just outside town. I knew every corner,
every face. There were only about five thousand of us, anyway. Even the
criminals and the cops were your pals (unless they were in the mood for a
little row). You could walk in the streets at 3 a.m. (slightly tipsy) without a
care in the world. That’s at least how I tend to remember my untroubled youth,
before I plunged into the big world – and got lost. It’s not an unusual
phenomenon, many people cannot handle the stresses and strains of life away
from home. Or so my psychotherapist claims.

I haven’t been home for
three years straight. Most of the time I hardly even thought of Cavonno, I was
so busily focused on my “new life”. And actually happy to have left Italy
altogether. My parents and teachers had always said that I would have greater
chances abroad: “You’re pretty bright, you shouldn’t waste your talents in this
dead-end country”. So once I got my Master’s degree from the University of
Milan, off I went to Canada where I had some relatives. The first couple of
months I worked sporadically as a waitress at my aunt’s restaurant. After that
I enrolled in a postgraduate programme in cultural studies at the University of
Toronto. And then, halfway through my clumsy research and writing, everything
slowly began to fall apart.

First came the feeling
of utter loneliness. Nothing special, I just realized that there wasn’t a
single soul in the world I could talk to. Then, some months later, the crying
fits started. Out of the blue. It was quite uncomfortable, I saw no logical
reason to be sad, every great intellect has felt misunderstood, I told myself.
But even this would have been bearable, if people hadn’t become so disgusting
to me. The slightest contact with the outside world drove me mad. I began
retreating into my bedroom more and more. Also my flatmate was a nuisance, I
did my best to avoid facing her. Fortunately she didn’t care. And finally came
the suicidal thoughts, bit by bit. It wasn’t dramatic, I didn’t hold a blade to
my wrist or anything. I was simply invaded by the recurrent idea that only
death could release me from this senseless discomfort. I wasn’t particularly
unhappy. I was just fed-up.

That’s what I told the
psychotherapist in our first meeting: “I’m not disturbed by my apparent desire
to die. It’s a sensible philosophical conclusion, when you think of it. You
know, the absurdity of existence and all that. Many great thinkers have dealt
with this issue. I suspect I’m reaching some form of enlightenment here. All I
want is that my head shuts up for a few hours, so that I can catch some sleep”.
It sounded very reasonable to me. My shrink was a nice chap, he prescribed some
pills. Then we started our proper therapy sessions to get to the core of my
suffering, he said.

Maybe he just wanted to get rid of me after
hearing me blabber away about life and death (with a penchant for the latter, I
admit). In any case, he strongly advised me to return to my origins. I can’t
blame the guy, I was the one who suddenly began reminiscing about my
adolescence and all the friends and acquaintances in Cavonno. It turned into a
slight obsession: what had happened to everybody else? I didn’t feel the
courage to write vacuous e-mails – “Hi, it’s me!” – and what would I tell them
about my miserable life anyway? My therapist finally suggested that I take some
time off and fly home. Why not? Back to the comfort of my parents’
semi-detached house and my cosy little bedroom with its own balcony. And most
importantly, back to the wide countryside where everybody can hang out and
watch time go by. Maybe I could begin anew.

***

Of course I didn’t tell
my mother I’m depressed. These kinds of emotions have no place in our family,
everyone’s very upbeat. At least on the surface. But I needed to explain why
she suddenly had to pay for therapy sessions, so I claimed I had suffered a
mild nervous breakdown because of overwork. Nothing much, I’d be back on my
feet in no time. She was quite supportive when I informed her about my plan to
spend the summer holidays at home, to really take a rest in my family’s
reliable company. “We’re all dying to see you,” mum said on the phone.

When you’re away from
home for a longer period, you tend to forget all the conflicts you used to have
with your relatives on a daily basis. I was really looking forward to sitting
with mum and dad and my younger brother Giaco in our big kitchen, listening to
the latest small town gossip and discussing politics (actually, complaining
about the incompetent government, whatever party is in power). It would be just
like the old days: mum would prepare some nice dishes with the help of Giaco
(he loves chopping) while I would sit in front of the TV in the living-room.
Then dad would come home from the office just in time for lunch and we would
spend the next hour or so praising mum’s cooking and talking about our day.
Afterwards we would walk down our residential neighbourhood with our dog Missy
to Passatempo, the small café where we drink an espresso after meals and
exchange a few friendly words with the owner. Finally, mum and dad would return
home with Missy, and Giaco and I would proceed to the ‘downtown’ cafés –
actually just a couple of small streets away – to meet our different friends
and spend the afternoon chatting away about… whatever. I honestly don’t
remember. But I missed them all. Even people I had hardly known became a source
of immense nostalgia.

I was so sick of the
urban chaos of Toronto, anyway. You’re always surrounded by millions of people
and cars and neon lights. I was pining for the laid-back rhythm of Cavonno,
especially in the summer when the tremendous heat makes it impossible to do
anything but sit around in the shade, waiting for sunset. Alternatively, you
can bicycle down to the river and spend the afternoon under a big tree, with a book
or some friends and a guitar. In the evenings you hop from one bar to another
and when you get sick of that you take a walk to the little park in front of
the town hall, or you drive with some friends to the surrounding hills and look
at the stars. Every so often there is a party – at somebody’s place, or in one
of the bars, or in a neighbouring village, or even in some remote clearing in
the woods south of Cavonno (for the more illicit gatherings). Finally you just
walk or drive home and fall asleep without even bothering to change into your
pyjamas. Nobody will nag you till midday. Except maybe Missy. Then the whole
cycle starts all over again.

You can’t wish for a
better vacation. In fact, these habits can easily drag on indefinitely. Mum had
informed me that several of my friends and classmates were actually moving back
to their parents in Cavonno after years away at university. They seemed happy
to return to the old routine. Why shouldn’t I? After all, I had lived in
paradise and never even noticed it.

***

The flight from Toronto
to Milan via Frankfurt is absolutely packed with Italian families. I am amazed
that so many of my compatriots are living in Canada. Of course, I’m more than
familiar with Little Italy in Toronto, because that’s where mum’s younger
sister Margarita and her husband run their bloody pizzeria. I absolutely hated
it. I don’t consider myself an emigrant. These people were basically kicked out
of Italy because they couldn’t make a living there – whereas I chose to
continue my exciting studies at the University of Toronto, didn’t I? Unlike
them, I’m not selling my working power. I’m chasing knowledge. I could have
ended up anywhere in the world.

Most of them speak
Italian with accents I can hardly understand. Like the peasants around Cavonno.
“Simple people,” my mother would tell me. Hurled out of their villages into the
New World, they rush back home for a break whenever they have a chance. Come to
think of it, maybe I’m not that different. How depressing.

The woman next to me, in
her fifties, keeps praying to Our Father and Virgin Mary and all the other
saints, holding on to her rosary. She wanted to switch seats with me, so that
she wouldn’t have to sit at the window. She believes she’s safer, now that
she’s squeezed in between me and a young chap (around my age) who keeps
ordering whisky and staring into space. Two seats behind me is a couple with a
baby that doesn’t stop screaming. “Now, now, there’s no reason to cry,” I
mutter to myself, “life is going to get far worse when you grow up.” My
therapist says I’m too pessimistic. He thinks this goes way back and it is now
seriously interfering with my mental health. I only tried to make a few jokes
about the misery of life and all, but he never even smiled. “My job is to help
you change your attitude,” he told me. Apparently I haven’t made much progress.

Of course I ponder about
(or do I hope for?) the possibility of a plane crash. At least it would be
relatively quick: a few minutes of panic, maybe a pang of intense pain before we
all get blown into pieces, and then everything is over. Serenity forever. I
just hate the idea that my last moments would have to be spent surrounded by
these dreadful people. In any case, for better or for worse, we all land safely
(thanks to my neighbour’s even more frantic praying towards the end).

I’m beginning to wonder
if it was such a great idea to return home when everybody else is on vacation.
Also Cavonno will be full of emigrants, they’re louder than the usual locals.
The cafés will be crowded with them, they will invade our secret spots at the
river and litter them with the disgusting leftovers of their family picnics,
they will even cause traffic jams on the (usually rather empty) main street.

The first flicker of doubt crosses my mind.
What the hell am I doing out here? Why didn’t I just stay in my little room in
Toronto?

***

Mother picks me up at
the airport. For a while we chit-chat about the new improvements at the
airport, the traffic on the freeway, the hot weather. She informs me that dad
and Giaco and Missy are doing “very well” and she herself is “fine”. Then we
run out of subjects.

I’m about to fall into a
comfortable slumber when mother asks: “So what happened with Eric, anyway?” I
can’t believe she is bringing up this topic. Eric and I have broken up almost a
year ago. What’s there to tell? “Nothing happened, mum. We didn’t get along
anymore, that’s all.”

Eric Thompson, my big
Toronto love. It’s probably my fault that mum is curious about him, I made such
a big fuss when I first met him. This was long before my little crisis. I was
all happy and optimistic back then. We were introduced by some common
acquaintance at a party and I immediately fell for him. He told me he was a
film director and had a small firm with a friend. They specialised in shooting
music videos. I thought this was so cool, finally I got connected with a
creative mind. We would spend hours discussing cultural issues, I imagined.
Boy, was I innocent.

For a 21st
century youngster, Eric was pretty well-read, I’ll grant him that. You could
have a fairly intellectual conversation with him. He even seemed quite
interested in my thesis in the beginning. Maybe we should have remained nice,
fairly distant friends. But instead we had to get involved. I moved in with
Eric after he evicted his flatmate. We had only known each other for a couple
of months, but things seemed to be working out really well – and in any case, I
had been looking for a place closer to university.

Our problems began
shortly after that. It’s only when you have to live with a person, day in and
day out, that you start noticing how utterly boring they are. At least that was
my experience. Eric would spend so many hours watching MTV, it was sickening.
He said he was just keeping up with his trade. Not that any of the crappy
videos he and his partner shot ever made it to MTV – but he was continually
bragging about the latest band they were working with: “These guys are gonna be
big pretty soon,” he’d tell me. All the while I surrounded myself with books
and tried to figure out what I was supposed to be writing about anyway. I was
pretty aimless. Eric soon stopped listening to my theories and complaints about
my professor and colleagues.

After one year together,
we got really tired of each other. But our relationship dragged on – mainly
because I expected that any minute one of Eric’s rather uninteresting short
films would be selected for a festival or a fellowship or whatever, and he
would manage to get together enough funds to shoot his first feature film. He
already had a script. It was a banal love and crime story. I had tried once to
propose some changes in an attempt to make it more enticing, but Eric had
accused me of interfering with his art. He was probably right. What did I know
about film-making anyway? I didn’t even like most things he watched. No
abstraction, no metaphysics, just entertainment. “You’re so pompous,” Eric
would tell me.

Anyway, his short film
did eventually get chosen for a minor event in Montreal. He was thrilled, of
course. I didn’t even accompany him, I’d had enough of meeting so-called
artists trying to rise out of anonymity by producing nonsense. As if there
wasn’t enough of that out there already. Still, I hoped that my boyfriend would
get a break and then our relationship would improve, too. I even bragged
towards my mother on the phone: “Eric has been invited to Montreal and is
meeting renowned producers.” And indeed, not everyone was as pessimistic about
his art as me, so he was able to find some people interested in working on his
project. Hurray for Eric. Shortly afterwards he wrote me an e-mail from
Montreal (where he stayed on even after the end of the festival), announcing
that he wanted to break up our relationship. He had fallen in love with one of
the festival organizers. He gave me one week to move out.

My therapist suspects
that I was more affected by “Eric’s betrayal” than I’m ready to admit. I’m not
so sure. I don’t even miss the guy, he was really getting on my nerves. I’m
just annoyed that I invested so much of my precious time in this relationship.
And his flat was pretty nice.

“But he had no right to
kick you out like that,” mother tells me. “He could have let you stay on for
another month or so, instead of forcing you to move to aunt Margarita’s. Not that
she complained, dear, she was happy to give you a hand again, but it was all so
out of the blue, you understand.”

“It was just bad timing,
mum. I’m very grateful for auntie’s support.” I bet that she complained because
I refused to work for her and instead I insisted that my parents pay for the
room she provided me. It was only for a short time, anyway. “And I’ve told you
before, mum. It’s not like Eric owns that flat, he’s just the main tenant.” I’m
not sure why this should sound like a consolation.

As if she knew anything
about my work. I’m getting really annoyed by this conversation and tell her I
need to have a little nap because of the jetlag. I should have guessed that my
mother would become all inquisitive as soon as she got a chance. On the phone she
tends to be very diplomatic, so it’s easy to avoid discussing issues that are
none of her business. Now she finally has a chance to blurt out all the things
left unsaid for years. I had conveniently forgotten this feature of mum’s
personality. I already foresee all the uncomfortable topics she will be
bringing up in the next few hours and days: my unfinished thesis, my aimless
degree, all the money my parents have put in to finance my stay in Toronto,
especially since I was unable to renew my scholarship last year.

My therapist said:
“Spending some time with your family will help you recover some trust in
yourself.” I wonder what kind of family he had in mind.

***

I only wake up when my
mother is parking in front of our house. Missy is already leaning over the gate
and barking hysterically, interrupted only by mum’s stern admonishments –
“Missy, shut up!” – which the dog absolutely ignores. They always play this
game. Suddenly I’m embarrassed. I don't want to be seen by anyone when I step
out of the car. You have no anonymity in this place, as soon as I'm spotted by
one of the neighbours the word will spread that Rita Di Luccio, the notary’s
daughter, has returned home. They might comment that I look thin and pale and
have dark rings under my eyes. Before long they’ll start a rumour that I'm on
drugs. Maybe I'm even on the run from the Canadian police. There are no limits
to what people can invent if you give them a chance. Well, too late to worry
about that. I'm probably just being paranoid. And anyway, who cares about my
insignificant existence?

“I have prepared Giaco's
old room for you,” mum informs me as we drag my luggage inside. “I can't recall
if I’ve told you that your brother decided to move into your bedroom last year,
it has so much more light. And he just loves that little balcony, sometimes he
can sit there for hours with a magazine! He has also selected some nice new
furniture. I'm sure you don't mind, do you? After all, he lives here all year
round.”

“Yes, it's fine,” I
reply. I feel an enormous amount of rage. “Maybe I can just stay in the guest
room, at least it has a window to the backyard.”

“Oh, that wouldn't be
convenient for your father. He’s turned the guest room into his home office. We
hardly have any guests, anyway. They can be put up in Giaco's old room, just
like yourself. We’ve installed a bright neon lamp, you won’t even notice the
dimness. Plus you’ll have your own TV set. Dad bought a new one for Giaco.”

“Why didn’t you just
enlarge the window, as you always planned?” I ask, with obvious resentment in
my voice. I’ve only been with my mother for a few hours and I already can’t
stand talking to her.

“Easier said than done.
But let's not get into details now. Obviously, if you ever decide to return
home for a longer period, we can introduce all sorts of changes.” Mum remains
as friendly as ever. That's one of her assets.

Giaco is sitting in the
living room with a comic book. He doesn't get up to hug me or anything. We used
to be really good friends when we were kids, at least according to mum’s
reminiscences, but for the last decade or so we've kept our distance. He’s only
two years younger than me. We don't fight, we just ignore each other. At least
Giaco bothers to nod at me in acknowledgement of my presence. “You look the
same,” he says and returns to his comic.

My brother was the one
who chose the worst room in the house, anyway. At the time he was thirteen and
going through his gloomy period, to put it mildly. He painted the walls black.
He showered once a week, at best. He just played video games as soon as he got
home from school. Mum and dad were pretty worried about him, but eventually he
went back to “normal”, i.e., he joined the local basketball team, got himself a
more fashionable haircut and went out for drinking bouts with his pals. He
remained a bad model for cleanliness, though. And he continued enjoying his
cave-like bedroom (which none of us was allowed to enter, of course).

Looking at Giaco today
you would never guess that he was once a troubled teenager. He likes to wear
designer clothes in ridiculous pastel colours that make him look like he’s
fifty-something. He puts far too much gel on his hair and he’s always
clean-shaven. He listens to preposterously bad music, doesn’t read at all
(except for his childish comic books) and considers partying on weekends just
about the greatest fun one can get out of life. I notice that he’s gained
weight. Probably from mum’s cooking.

“Don’t you think your
brother looks really cute?”, mum asks. We enter his old bedroom. It still stinks
of him.

***

I feel a strong craving for a cigarette, though I
haven’t smoked for years. Eric was a bit of a health freak, bless him. He was a
strict vegan environmentalist and he convinced me to drop my harmful taste for
tobacco and alcohol and meat. Fine by me. We had quite some disagreements,
though, when it came to our so-called political convictions. Listening to his
endless tirades against the Enemies of Earth got really annoying after a while.
And of course, he considered my fatalistic opinions about the futility of
fighting for a doomed and not particularly pleasant planet the kind of
ideological garbage that alienates people from their civic responsibilities. In
the end he didn’t do much for the planet, either. The closest he got to showing
his commitment to a cause was his film script: it’s the story of a handsome
young environmentalist (and female pendant) who courageously fights a vicious
corporation secretly disposing of dangerous chemicals into a big river and main
artery of an urban centre. Believe it or not, the hero wins. I can’t wait for
the screen version.

I’m sitting in the
living room with my brother, watching some TV talk-show and waiting for dinner.
Every now and then Giaco makes some silly remark about the talk-show host’s
haircut or a participant’s tie. I notice how little he’s changed in the past
years. I had actually imagined that it would be nice to see him again. I
promised myself I would take interest in him, ask him about his opinions,
attitudes, childhood memories. Now that he’s next to me, I wonder how I could
have been so naïve. The last thing I need is to get deeper involved with this
dull character. It’s bad enough we have to live under the same roof.

Then Missy starts
barking like mad, so everyone knows that dad is coming. I get up to meet him at
the door and feel tremendously embarrassed. I haven’t missed him at all. We
exchange two pecks on the cheeks and he tells me: “You look more grown-up.” I
wonder if he meant “older”.

Mother has prepared my
favourite dish: roasted chicken with onions and cream. The smell brings back a
good feeling, but when I look at my plate I feel disgusted and wonder where
this dead animal comes from. I suspect it has been raised under the most
horrible conditions in some chicken factory, where they pumped it with hormones
and antibiotics. Not to speak of the artificial cream and dried onions.
Everyone else is munching away and nodding with approval. Nobody ever complains
about mum’s cooking. I decide to eat some more salad, which looks a bit more
appetizing. Even though I’m sure it all comes from the same big supermarket at
the edge of Cavonno.

Of course mum soon
notices that I’m not enthusiastic at all. She asks me if there’s something
wrong. I had informed my parents about my vegan conversion, but when mum asked
me if I now required special food I decided not to be a party-spoiler and just
accept whatever she offered. My family isn’t very much into vegetables, anyway.
They wouldn’t go through the trouble of getting some decent biological products
or whatever, they’d probably just buy some ready-made deep-frozen stuff. But
now I see my mistake. I simply cannot digest this poison anymore. I don’t want
to offend my mother, though, so I claim that my stomach is still affected by
the long flight. Almost immediately everyone turns sour. “If you don’t like
chicken,” mum says in a low voice, “I won’t bother preparing it, either.”

Dad has retired to his
home office after a superficial dialogue with me about my health. He wanted to
be sure that I’m alright, he said. I explained how frequent these kinds of
breakdowns actually are – “it’s called ‘burnout’,” I said, “every second
businessman or manager goes through this.” I had no idea if this was accurate,
but it didn’t matter. The important thing is to make my family believe that
everything is basically under control. Even though they probably suspect I’m
going nuts. Why else would one need therapy? Or come home?

Giaco is preparing to go
out, he has turned his stereo to full volume and is fixing his hair in the
bathroom. I’m sitting in the living room, looking through today’s newspaper. I
hadn’t picked one up in years. “Noise, noise, noise,” I tell myself. I’m bored
to death. And more depressed than ever. Not twelve hours have gone by and I can
only think of returning to my cosy little den in Toronto. At least there I can
barricade myself. What in the world made me decide to join these people again?

My mother comes in.
“Aren’t you going out tonight?”, she asks in an exceedingly friendly tone. We
haven’t exchanged another word since our little confrontation over the bloody
chicken, which I didn’t touch – so I was forced to eat an extra portion of
salad and pasta. “If you hurry, you can get a lift from Giaco.” My stupid
brother has to drive downtown, although it’s only a 10 minute walk through neat
residential neighbourhoods. You spend more time trying to find a parking space.

I tell mum I’m too tired
and would rather go to bed. The last thing I need right now is to plunge into a
senseless chase for pleasure in Cavonno. I don’t want to see anybody, I’m
uncomfortable just thinking of entering one of the usual bars and walking over
to some acquaintances. Out of the blue. Having to exchange a series of pecks
and superficial words. “So what have you been up to, lately?” Smiling at
everyone and telling them fables about my exciting life in Canada. Hearing
their fables in return.

***

Before locking myself up
in my new dingy and smelly bedroom, I sneak into the attic and look through the
boxes where my mother has shoved all my belongings: old tapes and CDs, some
magazines and books, letters, photos, notepads… I manage to dig out my old
diary, which I left behind when I moved to university in Milan.

Tucked in bed, I start
leafing through the diary. It’s full of embarrassing descriptions of my crushes
and conquests and betrayals. I was sixteen when I started it. On the back pages
are careful calculations of the amount of calories I ingested during the period
of one month – that’s when I tried (unsuccessfully) to lose some weight,
because one of the guys I fancied had made jokes about my flabby thighs.
Towards the end of the diary there’s some detailed account of my first steady
relationship, which lasted almost three years. Back then I was convinced I was
going to marry Sergio. We haven’t talked to each other since I moved to Canada.

The last entry in the
diary catches my eye. It was written on the day before I left Cavonno to start
my university studies in Milan. Most of it concerns my high expectations about
all the exciting people I would meet. The final paragraph reads:

I can hear freedom calling. I’ve been counting the
days till my departure. I hate all my stupid so-called friends, and the boring
evenings in always the same cafés with always the same conversation topics, and
my parents continually nagging me for arriving home at dawn, and my moronic
brother threatening to tell on me for smoking joints! I’ve had enough of the
provincial gossip and the petty-mindedness. As soon as you look and behave
different you’re treated like an aberration! I doubt that I will ever come
back. Save perhaps for holidays, because of my bloody family. Out there Sergio
and I will finally have the chance to be authentic, we’ll drop all the false
connections and social obligations. We will go through life as we please,
without unnecessary attachments. Who needs a “home” anyway? Here all
relationships are enforced: you put up with your family and friends because
you’ve grown up with them, not because you like them. Nobody even bothers to
really get to know you. You’re stuck to the role they assign for you, it’s an
eternal rerun of the same boring play. I’ve had it. I want to discover the real
me!

Of course I returned to
Cavonno again and again. Almost every weekend, in fact. Somebody still had to
take care of my dirty laundry, after all. And Milan turned out to be a
disappointment, too. Not to speak of my promising “liberating” relationship
with Sergio.

One thing surprises me:
I have absolutely no memory of this apparent hatred for Cavonno. When I look
back at those years of “imprisonment”, I can only recall relaxed moments in the
comfortable company of familiar faces. In fact, the latest crying fits I
experienced in Toronto, shortly before my shrink advised me to fly home, all
circled around my lost happy adolescence. Could it be that I was once unfair in
my negative judgements of my home town? Or have I conveniently erased from
consciousness all the nerve-racking elements that made me first leave Cavonno
and ultimately Italy altogether?

Now that I’m sitting
here in this dreadful room, listening to the TV sounds coming from my parents’
bedroom, I begin to understand that 18-year-old’s eagerness to get out of here.
I have the niggling impression that I may have fallen into a little trap.

***

2.

Around midday I wake up after an excruciatingly bad
night. I tossed and turned for hours, I tried unsuccessfully to read and
finally I took a sleeping pill at about 3 a.m.. When I left Toronto I had
promised myself that I wouldn’t touch these pills, no matter what. It’s bad
enough to be depressed. I don’t want to become an addict on top of that. I had
hoped that at least the jet-lag would knock me out for a while, but no such
luck. My head feels even more hyperactive than when I began my therapy. Talk about
a rollback.

In spite of my
exhaustion and lousy mood, I force myself to get out of bed. Here you can’t
hide yourself, anyway. As I walk to the bathroom I notice Giaco, who has also
just woken up, coming out of my former room. It’s obvious he’s got a hangover.
I’m about to say good morning when he dashes past me to the bathroom, bangs the
door in my face and locks himself up. Then he laughs. I’m so shocked by his
behaviour, I fear I will have a crying fit. I hadn’t felt this sort of
irrational hatred for a long time. In a split second I’m back to my childhood,
when I used to hunt Giaco down and pull his hair and bury my nails in his skin
until he cried for mum’s help. I’m about to kick the bathroom door when mum
shows up and asks me if I’ve slept well. “Like a rock,” I say. Though I
probably don’t fool her. I must look like a wreck.

Fifteen minutes later we
are all sitting around the kitchen table. To compensate for the unpleasant
dinner last evening, mum has prepared a totally vegetarian lunch. It consists
of micro-waved cannelloni with spinach and ricotta followed by some leftover
roasted potatoes and onions from yesterday’s chicken dish. “If you incidentally
find a piece of chicken, just push it to the side of your plate,” mum kindly
advises me. This time I do my best to appear pleased and chew with gusto. But I
do hint that in Toronto I have acquired a taste for cooking and can easily
prepare my own meals, to relieve mum of too much work. “Your brother usually
helps me,” she says.

Then Giaco starts telling
us about last night’s “sensational karaoke party” at the local discotheque. One
of his friends insisted on singing along every second song to the point where
he had to be dragged out of the disco because other clients were complaining.
Fortunately my brother’s story is abruptly interrupted when dad switches on the
TV to watch the news. While images of burning buildings somewhere in the Middle
East are flashing and Missy is whining to get some food from my mother’s plate,
I excuse myself to go to the bathroom. Upstairs I swallow a quarter of a
sleeping pill. Just to help me get through the day.

For a short while after
lunch I have the whole house for myself. I was supposed to walk over to Passatempo
with my family to have an espresso, but I insisted that I needed to take a nap.
Dad wondered if it was normal to be jet-lagged for so long and mum hoped I
would recover by the evening. “You must be dying to meet your friends,” she
said. “Of course,” I replied.

I sure as hell am not
going out to meet anyone. Hard as I try, I cannot possibly conceive how I
managed to convince myself that I actually wanted to see my old
acquaintances. That’s what kept me awake all night: imagining myself in a bar
with loud cheesy music, exchanging platitudes with people I don’t particularly
like or care about, just in order to pass the time until alcohol and drugs
finally knock me out. If that’s all life has to offer, then I’m really not
missing out on anything. I’d rather be bored by myself.

I feel like calling my
therapist, just to be able to talk to someone. But I wouldn’t really know what
to tell him. I don’t even feel particularly bad. He said I should get in touch
with him in case of an emergency. I suppose that means shortly before taking an
overdose of sleeping pills. Which I would never do in my family home. They
would surely find me before I had the chance to slip out of this world and then
all hell would break loose. I would end up in one of those awful loony bins
where they pump you full with chemicals and force you to watch TV and play
monopoly all day before kicking you back into reality.

Actually I’m pretty
pissed off at my therapist. One would think it was his job to figure out that
my nostalgia for Cavonno was utter bullshit. Probably a trick of my brain to
make me even more miserable. Then again, what did I expect? The guy’s married
to a successful lawyer and has three beautiful children with whom he goes
hiking in the mountains on weekends. No wonder he’s so enthusiastic about
family life. He’s probably convinced he did a great job by sending me back
home. I can’t wait until one of his kids turns into a junky.

***

In the late afternoon my
mother knocks on my door, interrupting my comfortable slumber. “Someone to see
you!” she announces in an overly excited tone of voice. Oh, dear. I should have
expected this. Of course everybody already knows I’m back. It was inevitable
that one of my silly girlfriends would pop by to pull me out of my den. Join
the mad masses. You can’t have a moment of peace in this place. Well, no point
panicking now. I might as well take it like an adult. Receive her with a smile,
chit-chat for a while and then complain about so much work to do for my thesis.
Decline any invitation to go out, no time to lose, deadlines to keep and all that.
Promise to keep in touch and seal the meeting with a hug. I can handle that.
The quarter sleeping pill is still effective.

As I approach the door I
notice that my heart is racing like mad. The visitor is talking to my mother
and I recognize the voice: Dario, my ex-classmate and ex-infatuation. There he
is, with a big smile on his face and a silly-looking goatee. But by all means,
he still looks very attractive. I probably blush as we greet each other with
two pecks.

Once inside my bedroom
we both feel awkward and can’t utter a sensible sentence. Come to think of it,
I don’t remember ever having had a real conversation with Dario. He was just
always around. He sits next to me on the edge of my bed and asks me how long
I’ve been back and if I had a nice trip. “Fabulous,” I say. Then we both laugh
like teenagers. I’m startled by the shrill sound of my voice. Dario says he
just popped by to say hello. And that it’s nice to see me. I want to ask him
why he never replied to my e-mails but somehow I find it inappropriate. It was
such a long time ago. “So what have you been up to?” I ask instead. He touches
his goatee and stares into space. “Oh you know, this and that, did some
travelling, hung out, wrote some poetry…” He chuckles in embarrassment. Then he
asks me how long I’m staying in Cavonno. “About a month,” I reply. “That’s
great,” he says. Then he asks me if I’m going out tonight, and I say “Of
course” without even thinking, and we agree to meet at the Pearl, one of
the local bars where my schoolmates always hang out, and we exchange mobile
phone numbers and two pecks again before he leaves, and I have the impression
that his hand rests on my shoulder a wee longer than necessary, which actually
makes my heart start racing again, and I notice he’s taller than I remembered,
and that he’s still using the same perfume, and I thank him for coming over a
bit too profusely, and he says “My pleasure,” and I actually feel a touch of
excitement and wonder what the hell is wrong with me as I close my bedroom
door.

During all the time I
was away in Toronto I never really thought of Dario. Until he wrote to me, that
is. I was still happily in love with Eric and one morning there was this e-mail
in my mailbox. All the way from Cavonno.

A
thousand greetings like hurrying butterflies! I hope you remember me. How is
your warm southern soul surviving the currents and counter-currents of the New
World? I haven’t heard from you for so long… then again, you haven’t heard from
me either, have you? But today I had to tell you something, and why, you may
ask, and strange as it may seem because… Well, I just came back from the Pearl
and we kind of talked about you, and wondered how you were doing… We were
listening to this band called Jincan, do you know them? They’re great… and
their album is called “Great”, too… Anyway, I really hope you receive this
e-mail and can answer my question, namely how your soul is surviving amidst the
fluxes of foreign tongues, ah words, words, ever so fleeting, they remind me of
a great new poet, Gianni Pave, do you know him? Anyway, I notice that I am here
asking you questions but I haven’t told
you much about me yet, well I’m back on the mother ship after long quests and
whirling images from distant ports, some acting in Tunis, jury’s prize at
Padova’s national independent slam
poetry festival, film shootings between Amsterdam and Barcelona, encounters
with sirens and gnomes in Rome, sunrises by the river, red wine at the Pearl
amidst visions of supernovas and the unity of being… And really, everybody wants
to know when you are thinking of coming over to see us? Here everything’s the
same, always different… I keep a little light for you in the corner of my
memory, and I don’t mean this in a sentimental way, no, and to prove it I leave
you with a flash of mad sincerity, 3, 2, 1, 0, here we go… I’ve always liked
you, especially your breasts and your intelligence, although I could never tell
where the body ends and the mind begins, and maybe because of that I always
hesitated between using my lips to talk of the sound of the flesh or to kiss
its whispering silence… And these are just signs, symbols, which come like
this, suddenly, in the middle of the night, and disappear again without
warning… Un
baccio, D.

Well, it was as close to a love declaration as he ever
got. It took me about four readings to figure that out. To be honest, I was
kind of happy. Finally Dario had confessed. We really did have a thing for each
other. So I wrote him a short e-mail with some small talk about my “busy
schedule” at university (which at the time I took seriously!). I told him I’d
love to know more about his adventures in Tunis, Amsterdam and Barcelona (just
about the only bit of information I could glean from his e-mail). I didn’t
mention Eric. Dario never replied. I waited a week and re-sent my e-mail. Still
nothing. I guess his signs and symbols had indeed disappeared without warning.

Of course I was
offended. So I turned the whole thing into a joke. I showed Dario’s e-mail to
Eric and we laughed at his terrible writing style and silly metaphors. And
what’s with the bragging about all the places he’s been to, anyway? In short, I
concluded that Dario was an idiot. I for once made sure I switched off that
light in the corner of my memory.

Famous last words.

***

Panic hits me as I am
looking through my clothes to find something fitting for my first night out.
The thought of walking down the residential neighbourhood on my own, crossing
the main street, stepping into the Pearl, looking around for familiar
faces, smiling and waving and starting a conversation – all this fills me with
an immense anxiety. I cannot be with people. I don’t want to talk to anyone.
Five minutes with Dario were difficult enough. How on Earth will I manage to
spend hours in the company of several equally boring individuals?

My therapist thinks I’m
developing a mild sociophobia. He advised me to fight my urge to avoid social
contact. “People are not your enemies,” he said. I try to remind myself of that
as I begin to feel the shortness of breath and the tears welling up in my eyes.
By all means, I must avoid this. If I start crying, I won’t be able to control
myself and very soon my parents will be banging on my door. Suddenly I realize
that I have to go out, whether I like it or not. If I stay here, I will have to
explain myself. Putting up with my family might just be worse than dealing with
all my acquaintances out there. Come to think of it, that’s what always drove
us kids out of the house and into the streets of Cavonno, come rain or shine.
None of us could stand being with our parents.

It takes me about half
an hour to recover my composure. I swallow another quarter of a sleeping pill,
just to be on the safe side. In the end it’s nothing special. Other people have
to go to the factory, concentration camps, war! I just have to go out and have
fun.

“You’re going out like that?”
Mum asks as I walk through the living room, where she and dad are watching some
American sitcom. I can’t see what she means. Black t-shirt, blue jeans, comfy
sandals. “It’s none of my business, of course, but really, Rita. I’m sure
you’ve got nicer clothes. Don’t you agree, Luca?” My father turns his head away
from the screen for a split second, nods at my mother and looks back at the TV.
I decide to ignore her. It’s something I learned a long time ago. The best way
to get things done around here is to just do them. Never ask for permission.
Pay no attention to complaints.

Just then the phone
rings and my father asks me to pick it up. “I’m not at home,” he says. As it
turns out, it’s actually for me.

Apart from the shorter
hair, Sergio hasn’t changed much. I’m honestly glad to see him. After all, I
hold no grudge against him. I really loved him for a while, I think. At least
until our relationship deteriorated into a huge melodrama. I finally split from
him when we were twenty. But the melodrama just carried on. We saw each other
almost every day. Sergio insisted that I was the love of his life and he should
win me back at all costs. He was still on that trip when I left to Canada. It
was with the best intention that I stopped answering his e-mails and phone
calls. I wanted him to move on.

Sergio hugs me tight as
I come out through the gate. It seems a bit uncalled for, but what the heck.
For old times’ sake. “Shall we go for a little ride?” he asks. Sure. I’m actually
relieved that he came to pick me up. Having someone by my side when I finally
enter the Pearl will make me blend in more easily. Maybe that’s why I
always let Sergio orbit around me – he kept me safe from the rest of society.
And he made me feel so damned important.

Loud reggae music plays
as we drive towards the outskirts of Cavonno and Sergio screams something about
a party in a new bar I don’t know yet which is supposed to be so much better
than the Pearl. About ten minutes later Sergio parks the car on a hill
overlooking our town. There used to be a small forest when I still lived here,
but now they’ve cut all the trees to build a residential neighbourhood. So far
there are only the concrete skeletons of terraced houses. Sergio tells me that
he often comes here before heading downtown. “Remember when we picnicked on
this hill?” he asks. I do, and I feel like crying. Sweet youthful innocence.
It’s not that I have particularly happy memories, we were already quarrelling
on an almost daily basis back then. But the future was still open, there was
hope, we made plans under the trees…

Suddenly Sergio takes
hold of my hand and tells me he’s missed me. That pretty much wakes me up from
my reverie. I pull my hand away and ask him how he’s been doing, what he’s been
up to, all that. I begin wondering if it was such a good idea to get into a car
with him. While he rolls a joint, Sergio lets me in on the latest developments
in his life.

“Even if you don’t like
it, you’re always present in my life,” he says. “Of course I know that the same
doesn’t apply to you… Anyway, I wanted so much to fall in love again and
finally it’s happened. Fortunately she feels the same way about me… It’s
strange, Camilla’s just 17 and still at school. She doesn’t want to go to university,
she doesn’t really have any plans… apart from having babies as soon as
possible. She’s very caring and sweet, but what I really like is that she’s
beautiful in every way and seems to be the one… You know, capable of loving
only one man for the rest of her life… I’ve always believed in these things, in
spite of the difficulties I had with you. I never gave up on romance… And the
way everything’s happened – it’s so… pure, it keeps me from forgetting my old
dreams…”

I tell Sergio I’m very
happy to know that things are working out for him. He lights the joint and the
smell of marijuana invades my nostrils. I haven’t smoked for years, but now
that I sit here I am tempted to take a few puffs. It’s probably not worse than
the bloody pills I’m swallowing. “Where’s Camilla now?” I ask him.

“She’s spending some
time with her relatives near Rimini. Anyway, I didn’t say things were easy, so
you don’t need to be all happy for me already. You see, soon after our
relationship started she was asking me about you!”

“I can’t see anything
wrong with that,” I reassure him.

“Yeah, well, the thing
is, I didn’t have to bring you up or anything, it was other people here in
Cavonno who talked about you and me as the ideal couple.”

“Really?” I ask in a
high-pitched tone. I find that hard to believe. We were so obviously miserable,
our most dramatic fights took place in public, we continually made fools of
ourselves. But Sergio ignores my irony.

“Some people even told
her that they thought you and I had married or something… So she got the idea
that you and I had been the perfect match and there was no way she could
compete with you… And then she became really jealous, I mean she had violent
fits and everything, she’s so insecure, you know… In fact, I’m wondering how
I’m going to have the courage to tell her that you’ve returned from Canada and
I’ve gone out with you… It will hurt her so much… She’s continually calling me
to check if I still love her… I switched off my mobile phone before picking you
up, she’s probably already wondering what’s wrong…”

That’s when it hits me.
I’m back in the melodrama. In fact, I may have arrived just in time for the
climax.

“Wanna puff?” Sergio asks.

I decline and suggest
that we head back downtown. I feel even more nervous than before I left the house.
Sergio isn’t too happy about the interruption of the conversation, though. He
complains that we haven’t talked for so long and need to catch up and it’s so
boring at the Pearl, what do I want to do there anyway, we can just as
well hang out here until the party and chat some more, he didn’t even get a
chance to ask me about my life, it’s as if I didn’t want to open up with him.
“Sure, I’ll tell you about my life,” I promise. “But later. Now I need a
drink.” It’s one of my old tactics with Sergio. Always agree. Keep a friendly
atmosphere. Avoid touchy subjects. Do anything to prevent him from flying into
a passion. In order to distract him I ask him about the new bar. This works
pretty well when he’s high. Which is mostly the case. He starts the car and the
reggae returns in full force. “It’s a great place, you’ll see!” Sergio screams.

***

The Pearl, named
after Janis Joplin. We’re a bit of 60s buffs around here, don’t ask me why.
Just about every second youngster runs around in hippie outfits. I used to be
one of them. We’ve tried to re-enact the Summer of Love and stretch it
indefinitely. It has worked almost as well as the original concept: lots of
drugs, more talk of sex than the actual act, endless speculations about
astrological signs and auras and transcendence, no more brain damage than your
average citizen. And somebody sprayed “Jesus was a Freak”, framed by a
marijuana leaf, on the church walls. There was a big run to get your photo in
front of the graffiti before the town authorities cleaned it off.

As we climb up the
stairs to the first floor where the bar is, we dive into ever louder music. I
wonder how anybody can talk in this environment. Come to think of it, I’m kind
of relieved. The place is not particularly full, there are maybe some 20 people,
and I recognize most of them. Dario isn’t here yet. I don’t really know what to
do next, so I just follow Sergio. We sit at the bar, underneath a big flat TV
screen tuned on to a muted CNN, the sound of drum and bass music blaring from
huge overhead loudspeakers. Apart from the TV and a few red and purple bulbs,
the place is dark. Freddie, the barman and owner, comes over and shakes hands
with Sergio. “Everything cool?” he asks. He’s one of the main marijuana and
acid dealers in Cavonno. Then he turns to me, breaks into a wide grin. Two of
his upper front teeth are missing. Rumour has it that he was a heroin addict
for years. He’s in his forties. “Welcome home, kid,” he says. I do my best to
smile back. “Anything you need, just let me know.”

Staring at the TV,
Sergio starts saying something about a terrorist attack on UN headquarters, but
before I can react somebody calls my name and I turn around and there’s Marta,
one of my schoolmates, holding a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarette in
the other and moving to the sound of the music. We greet each other with great
enthusiasm, which is what we’ve done for years. Even though we used to be
rivals at school, competing for the best grades and bullshit like that. Of
course I secretly envied her. She was Dario’s girlfriend back then. I never
could figure out what he saw in her. She pulls a bar stool and sits next to me.
The small talk begins. Marta asks me how I’ve been doing, I say “Great”, I ask
her how she’s been doing, she says “Fantastic” and then she tells me about her
teaching job at a technical school not far from Cavonno. Only it turns out she
doesn’t really work there anymore, the contract was terminated in July, and now
she’s looking for something similar, maybe more to the South, it would be nice
to move around a bit, but what’s really great is that she got lots of teaching
experience, and she worked a bit with handicapped kids, too, and her curriculum
vitae looks very good, that’s what her career advisor said. Marta keeps pulling
up her bra to better expose her cleavage underneath a tight red top. And
anyway, she doesn’t have any sort of attachments, she’s been single for over a
year now, her boyfriend, the IT specialist from Bologna, remember (I don’t),
well, he went over to Australia and the long-distance was just too much stress,
she’s had one or the other affair, nothing serious, though she is kind of
involved with an older man now, a human resources manager, it’s nice and all,
but she’s not so serious about him, she just wants to have some fun. “Know what
I mean?” she asks and laughs. I nod and order a beer.

Sergio has joined a
group of people at the other end of the bar, as far as I can see he’s still
talking about the UN. In the meantime Marta runs out of exciting stories, so
she asks “Well, what about you?” Here we go. I switch on my automatic
pilot. Oh, everything’s going quite well, can’t complain, am so busy with my
dissertation, Toronto is a very exciting city, so much cultural variety, and
the people are kind once you get to know them, hard-working and optimistic,
politically conscious, blah-blah-blah, it gets a bit cold in the Winter,
though. I obviously bore her to death, so she shifts back to herself and her
new boyfriend.

More people arrive. Lots
of pecks and smiles. But everything keeps moving, I have difficulties focusing.
People switch conversation topics in a flash, one second they’re telling me
about their father’s pancreatic cancer, the next they’re asking me if Canadian
TV is playing reruns of “Sex and the City”. Joints are passed around. I kindly
refuse them. The music is giving me a headache. Dario is nowhere to be seen,
and I can’t figure out why this bothers me. Sergio is on the balcony talking on
the mobile phone, I presume it’s his girlfriend. He gesticulates a lot, as if
he was having a row.

Finally Peppe comes in,
spots me at the bar and walks over to greet me. “Where the hell have you been,
we thought you were dead by now! I’m meeting Raffi downstairs in, like, two
seconds, we’re driving to the river, wanna come along?”

***

Raffi used to be my
brother’s classmate. Occasionally he’d come over to our place to do an
assignment and we would chat for five minutes. He was the opposite of Giaco,
really. You couldn’t see it in the beginning, but around the age of sixteen he began
transforming into a true freak: long curly hair, ripped-up bell-bottoms,
self-made tie-dyes, blood-shot eyes, a permanent grin, the whole shebang. He
made intelligent jokes. He was familiar with Jim Morrison’s poetry way before
me.

By the time I split from
Sergio, Raffi and I had become good friends. We were all part of the same
scene, anyway. Cavonno’s
misfit wannabes. But
unlike Sergio’s tendency to monopolize conversations with weird theories about
UFOs and increasing paranoid fits, Raffi was the cool laid-back type who
thought life was this tremendous trip. You should try everything at least once.
Look into the abyss. That sort of stuff. We’d smoke our joints and philosophise
endlessly about… well, life… I suppose.

And with Raffi came
Peppe, the closest I got to befriending a criminal. Peppe was the true
outsider. Born to an Italian father and a Somali mother, he and his siblings
were the only kind of black people in Cavonno (actually, they’re light brown,
but that didn’t seem to matter much). So they were treated as weirdoes. They
lived in the only neighbourhood for the socially disadvantaged. Peppe’s older
sister married a Swiss-Italian night-club owner and moved to Lugano, his older
brother joined the army and is now stationed in Afghanistan, his other sister
works in a car factory in Germany. Peppe himself became a junky and occasional
petty dealer in Cavonno. You could always count on him to track somebody down
when you desperately needed some marijuana. He was funny because he didn’t seem
to care about anything. And he gave an exciting edge to my connection with
Raffi.

Walking out of the Pearl
with Peppe, I suddenly feel elated. The old trio, together again. Isn’t
this what I’ve missed all along? The safe companionship of people who’ve accompanied
me through all kinds of enriching experiences and stood by me when I was down
in the dumps, who never passed harsh judgements on me, whose idea of fun was
sitting around with a joint somewhere far away from the crowd, talking until
the wee hours of the night? Why did I ever stop communicating with them? I
can’t figure it out.

“Ah, Rita, Rita, I
notice some wrinkles around your eyes, don’t try to hide them now, that arctic
climate isn’t good for you,” Peppe says and puts his arm around my shoulder. “But
you must tell us everything, no secrets, OK, we want all the dirty details of
your life. Man, you must really hate Cavonno, why else would you have stayed
over there for so long… Can’t blame you, though, it’s a major fuck-up,
this place. I myself am going to split soon. Got this project running in Paris,
a cool guy I met, you don’t know him, well, he owns a studio there, produces
hip-hop and shit like that, I showed him some of my latest stuff and he says
there’s definitely potential, but I’ve got to get my ass over there first. So
I’m saving some money for the trip, in a couple of months I’ll be a superstar,
you’ll see!” He laughs.

I want to tell Peppe
that I don’t hate Cavonno at all, in fact it’s much nicer than Toronto. But
he’s switched to singing one of his new rap songs – “Pay attention to the
refrain!” – which is as bad as anything he has ever composed. No originality,
easy rhymes, no underlying message, one or the other obscenity. Of course his
story about the Paris producer was bullshit, Peppe always brags about great
schemes but factually he never leaves Cavonno. Except when he spent 4 months in
jail, somewhere near Milan. He’s rapping so loudly that people walking by turn
to look. I feel a bit embarrassed – in fact, I’m not even supposed to be seen
with Peppe. Like most parents, also mine always made a huge fuss about my
friendship with “that lousy, no-good junky”. In order to shut them up, the kids
met Peppe furtively in bars where no adult goes, or in the various dark corners
where people gather to smoke a joint. He’s our ghost.

Peppe’s mobile phone
rings once and he says “Let’s go”. Raffi is waiting in his father’s van further
down the road, engine on, very loud trance music. There are only two seats up
front next to the driver, I take the middle and we’re off. The car smells
intensely of marijuana, I wonder what Raffi’s father makes of it. I’m also a
bit surprised by the choice of music, it isn’t Raffi’s style at all. But I
can’t really ask anything because of the loud beats and Peppe is screaming
something about some cheap CDs he wanted to buy from some guy, but now he’s
nowhere to be found. My head feels about to burst. Raffi lights a joint and
passes it to me. Without the slightest hesitation I take a long puff and almost
choke. The effect is immediate. I’m back on the magical mystery tour, no more
pain, no more worries. Already outside town, Raffi seems to be driving at a
tremendous speed, but I might be hallucinating. It takes about fifteen minutes
to get to the unpaved road leading down to the river. I feel as if only two
minutes have passed.

Raffi parks underneath a
tree at our favourite spot, you can see the moon and the stars and hear the
owls and the crickets… I try to keep my balance as I walk towards the river.
Only it seems that I’m walking much longer than usual. Suddenly I feel lost.
I’m standing on some rocks and can hear bubbling water but there’s nothing to
be seen. “Where’s our river?” I yell.

Peppe and I are sitting
on what used to be the river bank, he’s rolling a joint and telling me about
the dam that was built only last year, some 50 km up north. That’s where all
the water is stored now. We’re left with a tiny brook, just enough to wet your
toes. There are still a few deeper patches here and there, about the size of a
Jacuzzi. But you can forget about swimming. Raffi has stayed behind in the van,
talking on the mobile phone. When he finally joins us, he’s in a pretty lousy
mood. “Stupid Sonia took some acid on her own and is freaking out,” he says as
he sits down on the ground. “She wants me to come over right away.” That’s
Raffi’s girlfriend.

We’re silent for a
while, listening to the faint bubbling. Raffi’s phone rings again but he
doesn’t pick it up. He wants to smoke a joint before we leave. To switch
subjects he asks me what made me return to Cavonno. “I thought you were fed-up
with the lot of us.”

Did I ever say that?

For some reason I again
feel a tremendous urge to cry. I’m not sad or anything, I just don’t know what
to tell Raffi and Peppe. I can’t figure out why I left. Nor can I recall what
I’ve been doing for the past three years. Did I ever have a master plan? Did I
really believe that things were better out there? And did I, for that matter, really
think that coming back here, to this dried-out river, would solve my
existential dilemmas? The marijuana has only made my head more restless, I
can’t concentrate. I don’t even know how long I’ve been silent. Suddenly I
start talking the usual bullshit about my doctoral thesis, and how much better
it is to get an academic degree abroad, because of all the employment
opportunities and so on. I sound like my mother.

“Hey, I watched a
Canadian film on TV, the other day,” Raffi says, interrupting me. “I think it
was Canadian… Maybe American, I don’t know. It was very cool, did you catch it,
Peppe?” Peppe shrugs. “It was pretty late, I didn’t really watch it from the
beginning… Anyway, it was about these three friends, see, guys in their
thirties, and they all have families and boring jobs and shit like that, and
then one of them finds a dead woman in his car trunk, and next to it is this
briefcase filled with money, man. So he tells his pals about it before going to
the cops, and they decide to just, you know, bury the body somewhere in the
woods and split the money! Only the guy, the one who owned the car where the
corpse was found, well, he thinks he’s entitled to a greater share, because it
was his car and all, and…” At this point Peppe interferes, as it turns out that
he has also seen the film. “Yeah,” he says, “I really dug it, especially that
scene where the bad guys, you know the Colombian killers, or wherever they came
from, when they catch one of the friends and cut out his tongue! Man, that was
vicious!” There’s a moment of silence and then Peppe adds: “I think it was an
American film, though, probably in Alaska or whatever. What do Canadians have
to do with Colombians, huh? Right, Rita?”

I’m so perplexed by
their talk, I can’t really say anything. I look at the joint I’m holding
between my fingers and decide to pass it on. My headache returns in full force.

When we get back to the
car and the dreadful trance music resumes, I ask Raffi: “Whatever happened to
Morrison?” He doesn’t answer, so I presume I didn’t talk loud enough and wonder
if I should bother repeating the question. “I hear he’s living incognito in the
Seychelles,” Raffi finally says.

***

Before rushing over to
meet Sonia, in one of the villages outside Cavonno, Raffi drops Peppe and me
exactly at the spot where he picked us up. As I close the door of the van, he
asks: “Why don’t you come along tomorrow afternoon for a dip in the river? I
know a nice spot. You’ll see.” I agree. Though I’m not so sure, anymore.

Peppe and I go back to
the Pearl. I’m beginning to feel very tired, I can hardly keep my eyes open
as we walk up the stairs. Before we even get in, we bump into Dario and a bunch
of other people. They’re all on their way to the party at Wow, the new
bar Sergio told me about. Peppe doesn’t want to go there, though. “It’s such a
lousy place, Rita, believe me! These guys are idiots if they can’t see that!
I’ve been there, like, three times, and it was boring, boring, boring. Plus you
have to pay a fee to get in, imagine that!” A little strife takes place right
there on the staircase, about whether Wow is as bad as Peppe claims, and
some people agree that it’s not such a special place, just because it’s new,
doesn’t make it better. But since there’s a party tonight, everybody agrees
that we should still go and Peppe should come along and stop making such a
fuss. “We’ll smoke a joint on our way.” Unlike the Pearl, in Wow
you’re not allowed to take drugs openly. “And the bathroom is really tiny,” a
girl complains.

One of youth’s favourite
joint-smoking spots in Cavonno is this nice secluded place just behind the old
people’s home, with two large trees providing the necessary darkness. It’s kind
of a dead-end road only leading to a couple of small houses. So there’s hardly
anybody passing. And you can always flee quickly if there’s trouble, with a few
steps you’re back on the main street, walking along nonchalantly, minding your
own business. We’ve been coming here for years and nobody seems to care much
about keeping a low profile, anymore. Tonight, for example, there’s an excited
discussion about whether or not it is fair for bars to charge an entry fee. The
group has sort of split into two factions and it seems that the winner will be
the one who talks the loudest. Dario looks at me a few times and smiles. I have
no idea what to make of that.

The new bar is located
in a very narrow alley not very far from the city hall, about five minutes’
walk from the Pearl. Just next to it is a Chinese shop. “You can buy the
cheapest recordable DVDs, there,” someone informs me. Immediately after
entering Wow I regret my decision to come. The place is pretty packed,
the music is a perplexing mixture of commercial trash and alternative rock, and
I can see my brother in the distance, kissing some girl. A couple of guys are
walking around with digital cameras, and whatever they capture is instantly
played back on a big screen just behind the tiny dance floor. This seems to be
the main attraction: people grin at the camera, show their piercings, wiggle
their bums – and stare at the screen to see themselves. I decide I have to split.
Just before walking out, I see Sergio on the big screen, lying on a bench at
the back of the bar. He appears to be asleep.

***

Walking back home turns
out to be quite relieving. In fact, I recall that this was always my favourite
part of the night. The streets are empty except for the occasional cat, dog or
rat. It’s absolutely quiet, there’s a nice cool summer breeze. You’re all alone
with your thoughts. I decide to take a small detour and look around a bit. I
pass a brand new block, apparently the tallest in town, it has a butcher shop
on the ground floor with this neon-lit window displaying a couple of dead
lambs. I stare at their glassy eyes and wonder what that last moment was like,
before they got slaughtered. I pass Il Mercatone, the first supermarket
that ever opened in Cavonno, about fifteen years ago, where my brother and I
once watched Peppe stealing two bottles of whisky and getting away with it.
There’s a publicity poster glued to the entrance door: “Knowing how to buy is
knowing how to live.” I pass the house where my guitar teacher used to live and
work, until he had to close his business and return to his parents’ place in
Sicily because of some unpaid debts. He had a husky in the front yard who was
always on a very short chain and never barked. I pass the only shopping centre
in town, a miserable little building with a few barely surviving businesses.
Somewhere in there, leaning against the shop window of a recently closed-down
boutique, Sergio and I kissed for the first time, way back when we were
seventeen. Right after kissing him, I told him I wasn’t really interested in a
relationship. He said “Don’t fear love”. I pass the town’s courthouse, where
we’d often smoke joints in the back, until they built the new police station
just around the corner. That’s where I once told Sergio I had been kind of
flirting with another guy and Sergio threatened to kill himself if I ever left
him. I pass the corner where my father and I were once intercepted by two
little gipsy beggars and I gave them some change, and my father admonished me
for supporting that kind of “parasitical living”. He told me “If you want to do
something charitable, join an official aid organization”. I pass the restaurant
where my schoolmates and I celebrated our last day at high-school. We had so
much alcohol that several people ended up vomiting in some corner on the
street, and one guy went into a coma.

I arrive at a small
playground not far from my home. I sit on the swing as I’ve often done and
gently rock myself back and forth. A few days before I left for Toronto, three
years ago, I also sat here and dreamed of the exciting things ahead of me. But
nothing much really happened. It was the same over there: all the confused
people, all the miserable lives, all the frustrated hopes and unrealistic
expectations… And everyone trying by all means to deny that they feel shitty.

***

3.

I dreamed that my parents’ house in Cavonno was
surrounded by skyscrapers, many of them still in construction. The army was
marching in and a general was telling people to stay indoors. I rushed to the
living-room where my parents were sitting and tried to explain that something
terrible was happening outside and we should split. My mother told me not to
bother them while they watched the Wimbledon Tennis Championship finals on TV.
I woke up when a tank crashed through our front gate.

Well, I must have slept.

My mother is vacuuming just outside my bedroom door,
which means it’s Sunday. I can hear her scolding Missy, who loves to chase and
bark at the vacuum-cleaner. Missy’s almost seven years old but she never seems
to outgrow her puppy phase. She was adopted when my little brother Giaco joined
me in Milan to attend university. My parents were afraid of getting lonely, I
suppose. This turned out to be an unnecessary fear, as Giaco actually spent
more time in Cavonno than in Milan. Eventually he ditched his civil engineering
degree, because it was “so boring”. He switched to landscape architecture,
which was supposedly more creative, but he also got dissatisfied with that. Two
years ago he moved permanently back to Cavonno. Now he’s taking a long-distance
accounting course.

Sometimes I think my brother is wiser than me. He
caught a glimpse of the outside world and decided not to bother with it. He
seems as satisfied with his routine as Missy is with her puppy-role.

I finally unpack my
suitcase, which is half filled with books. I actually plan to start working on
my thesis again, just to have something to do. If nothing else, I can pretend
to be really busy whenever my family gets on my nerves.

My parents were pretty
proud when I started my Ph.D. – the first member of the family to get that far!
Never mind that my degree is practically useless and none of my relatives
actually understand or even show the slightest interest in my studies. So long
as I collect my high-sounding titles, everything is hunky-dory. I should
consider myself lucky, really. Other people at my age are forced to get a job.
I just have to read and write nonsense.

Take my Master’s thesis,
conspicuously placed on the shelf just above the TV set in the living room.
Anyone who comes over eventually has to listen to my mother bragging about it.
“Have I shown you Rita’s book? It’s all in English, you know. She was only 23
when it got published.” And then she’ll hand them this one-copy print specially
ordered by my parents, leather-bound and all. It sure looks like a book.
The English bit is quite cunning, I’ll grant you that. Most Italians can’t
speak a foreign language, so naturally they’re impressed as they leaf through
it. Gender and Transgression in Early British Romantic Poetry, by Rita
Di Luccio. 184 pages of pure academic balderdash and not a single original
thought. Quite an achievement, when you think of it.

Yes, those were the days. I could plunge without
hesitation into the most abstruse texts by renowned critics and come out with
formulations such as “The phallocentrism of the language tends to re-enact the
Oedipal crux, emphasized within the impulsive ejaculations of the creative act”
to interpret a poem about the sunrise in the woods. Of course I knew that was
utter bullshit, but it was pretty easy to play the game. At least until I got
sick of it. And stupidly convinced myself I could write about something
relevant, for a change. Look at me now. I don’t even know if anything is
relevant anymore.

When I enrolled at
Toronto University for my Ph.D., I really believed I had finally reached the
mythical Ivory Tower. I couldn’t wait to climb all the way up. It wasn’t the
prospect of a “career” that appealed to me – I was strictly after Wisdom.
Nothing excited me more than books. The concrete world wasn’t half as
interesting as abstractions. I considered myself an intellectual, born to mull
over the facts of life, solve its riddles, shine a light on the stony path
towards truth and all that.

Or so I told myself. In retrospective, I think this
was just an early sign of my increasing inability to connect with other people.
They bored me so much, I had to seek refuge in books. I wanted to achieve
Wisdom because I hoped it would offer me some consolation. And of course I
thought the Ivory Tower was full of fascinating academics, on similar quests as
mine. No more small talk, just pure intellectual masturbation of the highest
level, day in and day out!

Guess what, I was wrong.

***

At lunch it’s my turn to entertain my family. I
dutifully answer mum’s question “Did you have fun last night?” by telling all
the latest gossip about my schoolmates. I carefully select the details,
focusing on everyone’s failures: how Marta is desperately looking for a
teaching job all over the country, but there’s just too much competition; how
Paolo is barely scrapping by as a travelling sales representative for a
publishing company specialized in school textbooks; how Michaela doesn’t earn
enough money giving private English lessons, so she’s moved back in with her
parents; how Tonino has still not managed to finish his degree and has taken a
part-time job selling popcorn to moviegoers in a shopping mall in Milan.

For each of my tragic accounts mum has a success story
of her own to tell: “Remember Felipe, who used to live down the street before
his family moved to that new neighbourhood close to the cemetery? Well, I ran
into him the other day and he’s doing superb! He’s got a job on an oil rig in
Norway and he’s earning loads of money. He drives an Audi A5! And Vincenzo, the
son of Signore Amadeo from the grocery shop, he’s got a biology degree but
couldn’t find a job in his field, so he took a training course in
stress-management and now travels to universities doing seminars. And Teresa,
she was also in your class, wasn’t she? I hear that she’s teaching English to
kindergartners in the Netherlands, she’s got a Dutch boyfriend and they’re
getting married soon. You people with language skills have to move around, I’ve
always told you that, Rita. There are plenty of job offers out there, you just
have to look.”

Mother has obviously won this debate. She goes on to criticize the
Italian government for having squandered the country’s opportunities – whatever
that’s supposed to mean – and then she tells me “You’re much better off in
Canada.” I try to explain that also in North-America there are many young
people with college degrees who just don’t manage to get a job, and maybe this
is a global probl... “No, you’re wrong Rita,” my father intervenes, “the
Americans are doing far better than us, they’re more creative, more upbeat,
they know how to steer themselves out of a crisis. Whereas our economy is in a
shambles, the European Union representatives can’t agree on anything, and all
the money is channelled to the brand new member states from the East, they’re
lagging so much behind and it’s beginning to affect all of us.” A discussion
ensues between my parents and my brother on whether it is appropriate to accept
“second-rate countries” into the EU, instead of focusing on keeping a
competitive international level. I remain silent for the rest of the meal.

This time I accompany my family and Missy to Passatempo.
The owner, Luigi, asks how everything is going in Toronto. He tells me that his
nephew, whom I don’t know, has just moved to New York to work in a “big hotel”.
I have no idea what relevance this has to my situation, so I just nod. The TV
screen hanging above the entrance door is playing the latest top-40 national
music hits, right now a half-naked woman is screeching “Amore, perché” over and
over again. Then Luigi and my dad start discussing the big football match
coming up this evening – I gather that each of them is supporting a different
team. My father gets really emotional about it, his voice rises and the people
at the surrounding tables nod or shake their heads, depending on their team
loyalties. Every now and then my brother also participates, reinforcing everything
my father says with apparent data he’s gathered from the newspapers: “Of course
everybody knows that Morgiani won’t play, his knee injury is barely healed, it
would be foolish to let him take the field. And without Morgiani, you guys
don’t stand a chance!” Mother and I distract ourselves by patting Missy, who’s
sitting just next to my chair. I make a mental note never to come to Passatempo
again.

A kid, about seven years old, comes to greet my mother
with two pecks. That’s one of her pupils. Mum asks him if he’s already done all
the assignments she gave them for the summer vacation and the kid says
“Almost”, staring at his feet. She tells him in a most motherly tone: “Now
don’t you go slackening just because you don’t have to go to school every morning.
Next year we’re going to work hard, so you better prepare yourself now! You’re
old enough to take some responsibility.” Then the kid’s mother comes into Passatempo
and exchanges a few words with my parents about the weather. When she and the
kid have moved to the other end of the café, mum whispers to me “Francesco is
really sweet but he’s impossible in class! I think he suffers from
hyperactivity. I’ve told his mother to take him to a doctor but she refuses.
She’s damaging him more than she thinks!” We get up to leave.

On our way back home Missy sets the pace, pulling my
father with all might, half-chocking on her leash, while dad yells at her to
slow down and to stop picking up rubbish from the street. Mum shares with me
her impression of this “new generation” of primary school kids. “Oh, they’re
much brighter than your generation, much brighter! I don’t mean that you were
stupid or anything, but I remember it was really difficult to get you kids to
do anything, you had so little enthusiasm for learning. You reacted to homework
as if it was a punishment. I had to put so much effort to keep you kids
motivated, it really drained me!” My mother was my primary school teacher.
Something tells me she’s not talking about my generation at all. She’s complaining
solely about me. “Whereas these kids,” she goes on, “they’re already little
global players, I tell you! They all know what they want to be when they grow
up, they’re interested in other languages and cultures. The city hall has just
approved a Chinese teaching programme for primary schools, we’re beginning this
September, lots of kids have enrolled. See, that’s what I mean, they’re
grabbing opportunities where they see them. They don’t expect to have their
future handed to them on a silver platter.”

The conversation is getting on my nerves. What does my
mother know about the future? She can’t even interpret the present! I start
gnawing at my fingernails, a little technique I developed years ago to suppress
sudden outbursts of rage. “Stop that, Rita, it’s disgusting,” my mother says.

***

In the afternoon Raffi picks me up in his father’s van
and we’re off to the river. He drives past our usual spot until we reach some
big rocks I hadn’t even noticed before. Just behind the rocks a small pool has
formed, it is wide enough to swim two breaststrokes in each direction and deep
enough to cover us with water up to our chest. “Voilá,” Raffi says. We sit next
to the pool while he roles a joint. “It’s still a secret place,” he tells me,
“so don’t go around bragging about it. Most people actually drive in the
opposite direction, there are a few pools like this, but none as nice, believe
me. I recently discovered it with Sonia, we were looking for a well-concealed
place to smoke some heroin. She was the one who insisted on checking out these
rocks. What can I say, she’s got an instinct.” I’m surprised to hear that Raffi
is still doing heroin. The last time we spoke, shortly before I left to Canada,
he claimed that he was fed-up with all these drugs. “Do you still get a kick
out of heroin?” I ask. Raffi thinks about it for a while. “Sometimes it’s just
better than being sober,” he says.

Raffi actually apologizes for having been so
unfriendly last night, he was in a bad mood because of Sonia. She’s doing fine,
it was no biggie, she behaved like a child, that’s all, and what was he
supposed to do, he couldn’t just let her have a bad trip on her own, that would
have made matters worse. He says he’s missed me. I say I’ve missed him too.
Although I’m not sure if I have. Did I even think about Raffi all these years?
I wrote to him once or twice in the beginning, but he never replied. To be
honest, I was kind of relieved. At the time I wanted as little contact with
Cavonno as possible. It was nothing to be proud of. I thought I could do
better.

I ask Raffi what he’s been up to lately, did he ever
finish his information technology degree, did he find a nice job… “Are you
kidding me?” Raffi says, as he lights the joint. “I had to do this so-called
training to receive my diploma. For six months I worked in the service centre
of a website provider. I had to answer e-mails and phone calls of clients
complaining about all sorts of problems. Most of the time there was nothing
wrong with the programs, these people were just ignorant, so I had to explain
everything step by step… Major drag. But I finished my fucking degree, didn’t
I? Swell. Then I started looking for a job, and guess what, all I found were
more training programmes of the kind I had just absolved. That stuff kills you!
So I didn’t really do much for a while. I hung out between Milan and Cavonno. I
took an occasional private project like designing a website for my uncle’s
restaurant or helping some friends who wanted this special website to promote
their band, none of that prefabricated MySpace shit…”

Raffi passes me the joint, but I decline. So he just
goes on. “Anyway, of course my father freaked out, he called me a lazy fucker
and all that, you know how temperamental he gets. He refused to go on paying
the rent for my apartment in Milan. We had some serious rows for a couple of
months.” Raffi’s voice begins to mellow down as the marijuana takes effect.
“Then there was also Sonia, who wasn’t getting ahead with her biology degree
and was so tired of hanging out in Bologna… Her flatmates were major assholes…
Well, to make a long story short: about six months ago, my father convinced me
to become a partner in his plumbing business, equal rights and all that stuff.
I take care of the accounting and occasionally do some installations,
particularly central heating systems. Plus I’ve created a cool website. The
business is going well, it’s a bore but I do my best to establish my own
working hours… And Sonia has dropped her degree and is starting something new,
maybe arts. She’s a great painter, you know? So we’re both living with our
parents again, which is a real drag, but it’s just a temporary arrangement.
We’re going to leave soon.”

I ask him where they are planning to go. “Oh, we don’t
have any fixed plans or anything,” Raffi says, “we want to get away from here,
that’s for sure. Maybe we’ll go to India… Or Cuba, that would be cool.” He
seems to fall into a sort of daydream, staring into space.

“But what are you going to do there?” I ask.

Raffi looks at me as if I had said something absurd.
“Why do we have to do anything? Why can’t we just live?”

I’m about to point out the obvious, that they will
have to somehow pay for “just living”. But then it hits me that Raffi and Sonia
are not seriously considering moving to any of those countries, it’s just a
little fantasy they’ve created, probably during their many high moments. “Maybe
we can join some NGO, just for the ride,” Raffi says.

We interrupt the conversation to go for a dip. We’re
silent for the most part, except when we exchange impressions about the
coolness of the water and the little insects we spot on the surface or crawling
up a rock. Watching Raffi floating on his back, I remember how jealous I became
when he first told me about Sonia. We had a pretty intense platonic relationship
for years, and I had often fantasized about becoming his lover. We spent so
much time together anyway, it would have been a small and probably quite
pleasant step. I’ve always liked Raffi’s looks. But something kept me from
getting further involved with him.

For a moment I’m tempted to broach the issue, who
knows if I’ll have another chance to be alone with him. Then again, I probably
wouldn’t be able to express myself properly. What do I expect from Raffi,
anyway?

When we’re out of the water again, lying in the sun,
Raffi asks me what my dissertation is about. “Contemporary culture,” I reply.
That’s usually where conversations concerning my dissertation end – it sounds
so boring that nobody is really interested in hearing more details. Which is
kind of relieving. But Raffi doesn’t drop the issue. “What’s the title?” he
asks.

Ah yes, the title. “Grand Illusions: Contemporary
Culture as Collective Self-Deception.” Raffi seems puzzled, so I try my
best to explain. How I’m suggesting that all the great ideals of our society
are just distractions to keep us from realizing what an utterly miserable
existence we all lead. Democracy, affluence, justice, protest, revolution,
emancipation, individualism, love, fun, pleasure – none of these concepts deliver
what they promise. So all our efforts are channelled into reducing the
dissonance between our upside-down convictions and the real world. But the more
we try to deny reality, the more miserable we get. Only we can’t admit this, so
we create yet more uplifting ideals to perpetuate our illusions. That is
basically the function of popular culture, the media, politics, even most
intellectuals. Which means we’re kind of living in a shared hallucination –
like the people of Emerald City in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, who
believe that they live in a green city because they wear green spectacles all
the time...

“So what do you propose, instead?” Raffi asks.

“Propose? Oh no, I’m not proposing anything. That’s
kind of a vicious circle, you know. Whenever someone comes up with a few good
suggestions to face reality, somebody else turns them into another grand
illusion. Think of Marx. Or Freud.” I notice I’m very excited, as if I had
smoked marijuana. It’s been ages since I’ve had the opportunity to discuss my
dissertation. That’s what you need friends for, I tell myself, to get feedback
and inspiration. All the stuff you can’t expect from academia. “I’m not really
looking for a solution,” I continue. “That’s also a typical trick of modern
ideology, to make us believe that we can actually influence events. I’m just
trying to get to the root of our permanent discomfort.”

Raffi sits up, starts rolling another joint. “Yeah,
whatever,” he says. “Sounds to me like you’re blowing things way out of
proportion… I don’t know about you, my friend, but I don’t feel any
discomfort.”

On our drive back to Cavonno we listen to The Doors,
just like in the old days. “Is Morrison also part of your grand conspiracy?”
Raffi asks sarcastically. I stare out of the window and don’t say anything. It
would be impossible to explain what I mean. I’m embarrassed by my own naivety.
How could I have imagined that anybody would agree with my loony ideas? What
proof do I have, anyway? If everyone believes in the same thing, how can it be
an illusion? It’s obvious I’m the deluded fool around here. No wonder I cannot
get ahead with my work. It’s a dead end.

Of course, my dissertation advisor put it more
eloquently. He said: “The problem with your project, Ms Di Luccio, is that half
your arguments are nothing new, and the other half are pure speculation. It’s
all very nice to formulate daring hypotheses, we do encourage original thinking
here, but you need some heavy theoretical backing. Many of the authors you’re
relying on have been at least partially discredited. If you want to use them,
you need to build a damned good defence, and I just don’t see it happening.
Maybe if you concentrate on a really relevant theme, such as the recent
transformations in western public discourse due to the internet, or the
emancipation of second-generation Muslim immigrant women, you can achieve more
satisfactory results. There are a lot of exciting research possibilities, if
you’re smart enough to grab them.”

This was about a year ago. The guy was probably trying
to do me a favour. But I didn’t feel like picking up any of his themes. I
wanted to draw the big picture, not dwell on superficial details. I already had
an outline for my thesis, each chapter concerning one of the “grand illusions”,
showing their fallaciousness, and pointing to the reality they tried to deny.
Of course, the more concepts I questioned, the more contradictions I
unravelled. In the end, I felt that reality itself had to be redefined! Until I
got paralysed by my own questions. That’s what I got for seeking Wisdom.

When he drops me off in front of my parents’ house,
Raffi says “You look tired.”

“Yeah, I’ve been working too much,” I tell him.

“Maybe you should switch your head off for a while,”
he says. I have the impression that we’ve had this discussion before. In fact,
this was one of Raffi’s frequent complaints: that I thought too much, I didn’t
know how to let myself go, I produced all sorts of “pseudo-rational walls”
around me, I distrusted emotions, I relied too heavily on books instead of experiencing
life.

“I guess thinking is a bit like heroin,” I say. “I
don’t really want to do it, but it’s the only consolation I know.”

Raffi laughs. He starts driving off but suddenly
brakes and yells to me from his open window: “You know, I’ll grant you that
Marx may have come up with some good points, cause the Cubans are Marxists and
they’re really cool. But Freud… the guy was just a pervert, everybody
knows that.”

***

My mobile phone has been switched off all day and only
now, in the evening, I notice several messages from Sergio. The first one, sent
around 4 a.m., says: “Where the hell are you? I thought you were coming to the
Party! Saw you with Peppe, don’t know why you hang out with that idiot.” The
second was sent at 1 p.m., probably when Sergio got up: “Why is your phone
always switched off? Please call me. Let’s get together this afternoon.” Then
another one around 3 p.m.: “Rita, is this really your number? Why don’t you
reply? Are you angry at me or something?” At 4 p.m.: “Called your home number,
your mother said you’re out with Raffi. Hope you’re having a swell time with
that junkie. Obviously you didn’t learn anything in Canada.” And finally, just
a few minutes ago: “Rita, everything’s cool, really. I’m not angry at you. I’m
not going to get on your nerves. I just want to chat a bit with an old friend.”
I sit on my bed and debate whether I should reply at all.

The afternoon with Raffi hasn’t cheered me up
particularly. I feel like getting under my blanket and crying myself to sleep.
Which is really not an appealing program for the evening. “The best way to
fight your crying fits,” my shrink said, “is to find a distraction. If you feel
like crying, get up and do something, try out a new cooking recipe, clean the
bathroom, go jogging, go to the movies. Whatever you want. Even switching rooms
or looking out of the window might be enough. You have to understand that your
need to cry is purely irrational. If you give in to it, you just perpetuate
your suffering.” In order to prove his point, he told me about a rare disease
that makes human males practice an extreme form of self-flagellation – biting
their fingers to the bone, punching themselves, banging their head against a
wall, over and over, until they bleed to death… In order to remain alive, these
poor creatures are literally tied up to a specially upholstered wheelchair.
Only under supervision they can occasionally move their hands, for example to
feed themselves. The thing is, these boys or men (if they live that long) are
supposed to be very sweet and peaceful – they have no conscious intention of
hurting themselves. “It’s as if they had an enemy within,” my therapist
explained. And when their “enemy” decides to strike, only one thing helps:
their caretakers must try to divert their attention. “Sometimes just turning
the wheelchair in another direction will do” That simple. One less punch for
the self-destructive mutants, one more day of life.

But what kind of life?

It’s typical that my therapist couldn’t come up with
an interesting suggestion to distract myself. I actually wonder if I’d rather
give in to my crying fit than cooking or going to the movies. Maybe I’m happier
with my enemy within.

Before making the transition to self-flagellation,
though, I decide to try his little trick. Only I don’t know what to do in this
house, apart from sitting in my gloomy room. I can’t bear socializing with my
family. I don’t want to put up with another of my mother’s sermons or listen to
my father and brother bragging or complaining about the football match. So
Sergio comes in quite handy. As usual. I write to him: “What about going out
for dinner? Any restaurant. As soon as possible.” Not one minute passes and he
replies: “Great idea! I know just the place. Pick you up in half an hour.”

Sergio and I drive to a new Chinese restaurant, the
first and only in Cavonno. It opened about six months ago not far from our
high-school. In order to attract the kids away from the school cafeteria, the
restaurant offers special 5 € lunches. Sergio tells me they’re quite
successful. “Sometimes the kids have to queue outside!” Things are about to
change, though, as the Cavonno high-school is introducing a new electronic
identification and tracking system next year, to keep students from leaving and
non-students from entering the school premises unnoticed. The tracking system
works via a special ID card, which not only opens the automatic gates, but also
registers their class attendance and grades. Plus it can be used instead of
money to purchase food and other stuff at school. “Most kids want to boycott
the whole thing, although teachers and parents are pretty determined.” I’m kind
of happy for the new generation – at least they have something concrete to
fight against.

Tonight we’re the only guests at the Chinese. Sergio
selects a table in the back, just next to an aquarium where a few unhealthy
looking exotic fishes float around and occasionally seem to stare at us. I
kindly ask the waiter to put the music a bit down, due to my “throbbing
headache”. Sergio recommends the sweet-and-sour pork. I wonder if he really
believes that the canned food from this particular Chinese restaurant can be
all that different from others. He frowns when I tell him I’ve become a
vegetarian, as if this was an unhealthy habit picked up abroad. But he decides
to share a totally vegetarian meal with me, just to show how unprejudiced he
is. I’m glad to notice that he’s in a good mood. I decide not to mention his
messages at all.

Sergio tells me that he had a huge fight with his
girlfriend yesterday, but now everything is fine again. He has explained to her
that we are strictly good friends. I nod in approval. Sergio has even left his
mobile phone on and has conspicuously placed it on the table next to him. But before
long he is complaining about his new relationship.

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate it. God knows how
miserable I was before Camilla showed up… Especially after you and I broke up,
you know, this was the worst time of my life. I don’t think I ever fully
recovered. So of course I was amazed when I fell in love again. I thought I
would never experience such emotions!… Anyway, the only problem is, I got used
to a certain standard with you, and I fear that this relationship won’t live up
to it.”

“You’ve got to give it some time,” I say. “Plus it’s
nice to have some variation. That’s what life is all about.” I’m amazed at my
capacity to produce so many clichés in a row.

“Yes, yes, I know that. I’m patient. But you were
always pretty rational and calm, whereas Camilla is more the emotional type.
With you I could talk, I mean really talk about everything, I never had to
explain myself much, it was as if you instinctively understood me. Not so with
Camilla. Sometimes it gets difficult to talk to her. That’s what gets on my
nerves. I try to explain something and she won’t make the tiniest effort to
follow my line of reasoning. When I point this out to her, she’ll start crying
and accusing me of not caring about her feelings…”

“As far as I remember,” I interrupt, “I used to cry
all the time.”

“No you didn’t. You may have shed a tear every now and
then, but it was always justified. I really did mistreat you. I was a bastard.
No wonder you left me,” Sergio says.

“I didn’t leave you because you were a bastard. It was
just time to move on.” Another cliché. Still, it seems more suitable than
trying to explain to Sergio that I broke our relationship off because I was so
fed-up – not only with him, but also with myself, my unfulfilled hopes, my
senseless life…

“No, it was my fault,” Sergio insists. “If I had
treated you with more respect, we would still be together. But at least I
learned my lesson. That’s why I’m being extra-nice to Camilla, I’ve given her
my heart and soul.”

Sergio’s mobile phone rings and he picks it up
immediately. For the next ten minutes he chats with Camilla, who has already
been informed that her boyfriend is having dinner with me. She sends me
regards, and I greet her back. The rest of the phone conversation seems to
consist of love declarations. Sergio says “no, I love you more,” then smiles at
something Camilla says, and replies, “well, my love is the size of the
Everest!” And so on. He also complains about the dinner, regretting that he
didn’t order the sweet-and-sour pork.

Once Sergio hangs up, I switch to more concrete
themes, to avoid spending another hour discussing his love for Camilla. I want
to know what he’s been doing since he finished his degree. Sergio graduated in
psychology at the university of Milan the same year I left to Canada. He
specialized in deviant behaviour – which I’ve always found sort of funny, since
that branch deals mostly with drug addiction and, well, just about everyone we
knew, including ourselves, were addicted to one or several drugs. Sergio
thought it might be a nice way to get free tickets to special parties and
festivals where lots of drugs are normally consumed. He would pretend to do
case studies.

“Well, I’m on vacation now,” Sergio tells me. “But I’m
working in Milan, in that support centre for addicts that we used to pass by on
our way downtown, remember? I’m really fed-up with it, though. Sometimes I
think I should have studied something else, maybe literature, like you… Or
history, that would have been even better…”

“But you got hired in your field, isn’t that nice?”

“As if! You know what I do all day? I distribute
methadone pills to registered junkies coming by every day to get their fix –
plus I interview newcomers who want to get clean or stay clean. I have to give
these people counselling, tell them how they should organize their lives. Most
of them don’t have a life! Man, they’re so fucked up.” Sergio shakes his head.
“That’s why I don’t like to see you hanging out with junkies like Raffi and
Peppe. Those guys are on a self-destructive trip. I really wouldn’t want you to
end up like that.”

“You know I’ve never even touched heroin,” I say.

“Sometimes being around such people is enough to
damage you. Trust me, I’m experienced. You should hang out with my crowd,
instead. Sure, we smoke joints and occasionally do some LSD, but we’re not
junkies!”

“We’re all junkies in one way or another,” I mutter.

But Sergio doesn’t seem to hear me. He goes on to
criticize heroin and cocaine, because “they close your chakras” – whereas
marijuana and psychedelics are famous for their chakra-opening qualities. I
wonder if he also talks to his patients like this. Then he explains in great
detail the importance of chakras to keep one’s emotional balance: “The seven
principal chakras reflect how the unified consciousness of humanity, in other
words, the soul, is divided to manage different aspects of earthly life. That’s
why the chakras are placed at differing levels in your body, marking the
transition from physical to spiritual: the lower chakra is concerned with
matter, and the top chakra, on your forehead, is concerned with pure
consciousness. To really open that chakra, also known as the third eye, you
need a lot of spiritual strength… Anyway, the important thing is that an
energetic imbalance between the chakras produces an almost continuous feeling
of dissatisfaction. For example, when the contact between the heart and the
head chakras is closed, people become anxious and confused. You need to make
sure that the energy is distributed evenly between the head and the heart, to
be able to truly contact your senses and touch real feelings.”

I nod patiently but don’t really pay attention to what
he is saying. I realize that much of our relationship was based on this
dynamic: Sergio would talk endlessly about the most obscure issues, and my mind
would just wander off in another direction. On the surface, though, it seemed
as if I was listening very carefully, because I was so sensitive to Sergio’s
body language. When he moved his hands more frantically or raised his voice,
that was my cue to say “Right, yes, I see”. No wonder he considers me such an
ideal companion.

Towards the end of our meal, and after two more phone
chats with Camilla, Sergio complains that we still haven’t talked about my love
life. So I tell him that I have a wonderful boyfriend, Eric, who’s a filmmaker.
We’ve been living together for a couple of years now and are “very happy”.
Sergio doesn’t seem to be interested in expanding on this topic at all. Though
he does inform me that he has never heard of a good Canadian film. “I don’t
think Canadians are very creative,” he says. I don’t bother to disagree. For
all I know, he might be right. Then Sergio switches to my dissertation: “What
are you writing about?”

“The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” I reply.

“The book or the film?”

“Both. And the musical.”

“Isn’t there also a cartoon version?”

“Sure” I say, though I have no idea. “The cartoon
version, too.”

“I remember watching the film several times when I was
a kid,” Sergio says. “I really liked it. Especially the Scarecrow, who thought
he was stupid and wanted to get a brain from the Wizard of Oz, only it turned
out that he was already pretty smart, he just didn’t know it… See, his head and
heart chakras weren’t communicating. But when the Scarecrow finally understood
how smart he was, he became ruler of Emerald City! So I guess it’s an
inspirational tale, isn’t it? Cause it teaches you to have faith in yourself.”

“Yes, that’s right,” I reply. “But I’m focusing more
on those green spectacles the inhabitants of Emerald City get to wear.”

“I think it would be cool to have green spectacles,”
Sergio says and looks at the fish in the aquarium.

***

Back downtown, we walk over to Sottomondo, the
local amusement arcade where Sergio is meeting some kid who’s supposed to be
selling good marijuana. “Normally I get my stuff in Milan, but I ran out of it
and just need a bit to get me through this week,” he explains. Sottomondo
is a pretty big place in the basement of one of the buildings along the main
road. You descend a staircase and land in the centre of the arcade – to the
right is the bar with a few tables and to the left is a mini-bowling alley. The
rest of the place is filled with videogame machines and several pool tables.
One of the most striking features of the arcade are the wall paintings, a weird
mixture of schlock and transcendence. You’ve got a black-clad bearded biker and
his half-naked female pendant, dashing towards some mountains – that’s the
image on the wall behind the mini bowling-alley. Then there are a bunch of comic-book
figures like superheroes and Donald Duck and other creatures I can’t really
identify, interspersed with spiralling flowers that look like they’ve been
drawn by some freak on acid, elves and faeries, plus a big ying-yang symbol.
And on the way to the toilets, just next to the bar, you will find an
anatomically correct painting of a human heart connected to a dizzying amount
of cold metallic pipes that don’t really lead anywhere but sort of feed each
other. Looking carefully you will notice that one of the pipes is leaking tiny
drops of blood. The author of this particular painting, known to everyone as
Fly, died of an overdose about five years ago, so the wall has become a local
treasure.

You’re not supposed to frequent Sottomondo if
you’re below the age of 16, but the place is always filled with under-aged
kids. It is still playing the same cheap techno music I was forced to listen to
when I used to come here with Sergio, who was totally addicted to two
videogames: one where you got to steer a whole football team playing the World
Cup, and another with a pink plastic gun used to shoot human and non-human
targets on the screen. I would stand next to him and just watch. I could never
really share his enthusiasm. But while Sergio concentrated on his games, I
could chat around with other people. Back then I didn’t know what else to do
with myself, anyway.

We head directly for the bar, to get ourselves an
espresso and greet Don Roberto, the fat owner, who runs the place with the help
of his equally fat daughter and her five-year-old kid. Don Roberto and a couple
of guests are staring at a blaring TV screen. There’s a special report about
the previous day’s terrorist attack on UN officials in Sudan, where also two
Italian “civilians” got blown up. They were engineers for some European
construction firm and had only recently arrived in the country. The sobbing
mother of one of the engineers tells the camera that her son just wanted to do
a good job abroad. This is followed by images of debris and broken glass and
blood on some dusty street. Finally a UN official says “We will not be deterred
in our efforts to help the Sudanese people.” Don Roberto shakes his head and
complains that “the whole fucking world has gone crazy.” I can’t really tell if
he’s criticizing the terrorists or the UN.

I spot Peppe and Raffi playing pool. Sonia is sitting
on a bar stool next to the pool table, watching the game, so I walk over to
greet her. She looks bored to death, but I’m not sure if my judgement is
correct. I can’t really say that I know Sonia at all, we’ve never exchanged
more than a few banalities. This time it’s no different. She tells me a bit
about her plans to enrol at an arts school, perhaps in Florence or even Rome,
and I talk about all the work for my doctoral thesis. Even though I have the
suspicion that Raffi has already made his jokes about my ridiculous attempts to
pass off as a radical intellectual.

From a distance Sergio beckons me to join him. He has
moved to what is known as the “Dealers’ Corner” – a spot behind the staircase
that cannot be seen from the bar, where Don Roberto stands most of the time. Of
course Don Robert knows very well that everyone assembles here to do some
illegal trading, so he has recently installed a surveillance camera. But the kids
don’t seem to care at all. Just as I am joining Sergio, his dealer is waving at
the camera and saying “Look, mummy, I’m on TV!”. That’s Johnny, a 17-year-old
good-looking blond kid dressed like a hip-hopper, who speaks really fast and
can’t stand still. Of course I know him, he’s the son of the local
ophthalmologist and was also my mother’s pupil. In fact, he was the best in his
class. My mother thought he was a little genius. “That boy’s made for success,”
she said.

Anyway, Johnny is just explaining to his audience –
consisting of Sergio, myself, and Johnny’s girlfriend – that Don Roberto can’t
really do anything against the dealers, because he’s got his own illicit
activities going on in a little room you can only access from the bar. That’s
where people meet to play poker. “And they bet a lot of money, believe me!
Which, of course, is illegal. That’s the real ‘Dealers’ Corner’, man! So Don
Roberto knows he has to keep his mouth shut, otherwise we’ll squeal on
him… Plus that cheap camera doesn’t really capture anything. For all he knows,
I could be just handing you some chewing gum. It’s all show, the poor old fat
thinks he can scare us.” Then Johnny tells us about the undercover cops who
occasionally pop by Sottomondo, hoping to catch some dealers in action.
“These guys, they come in here dressed like movie delinquents and start asking
where they can buy some stuff… As if we were born yesterday! I mean, come on,
this isn’t really New York… If a fucking stranger comes looking for dealers,
you can be damned sure that he gets spotted way before he can make out
who’s who in here. Sometimes I wonder what kind of world these cops live in,
really. It’s pathetic.” Johnny’s girlfriend laughs and nods.

Johnny goes on telling us about his drugs-related
adventures – occasionally interrupted to kiss his girlfriend, or to let Sergio
chip in with half a sentence, or to greet several people walking by. His
stories are always funny, as if he was a cartoon character: dodging
authorities, scorning adults (especially his parents), and getting high. They
sound totally fabricated, probably the result of too many films. I stop
listening after a while and instead I just watch him hopping around,
gesticulating and laughing. I realize that I sort of envy Johnny. There’s a
certain innocence in him, as if life really were just a funny game. He seems
quite protected in his little bubble, bouncing between school and the arcade
and home, without a worry in the world. I wonder how long he can keep this up
until reality kicks him in the butt.

Because the Pearl and Wow are closed on
Sundays, Don Roberto’s arcade gets especially packed. Sergio and I have left
Johnny to entertain other clients and we’ve occupied a table in the corner,
just next to a videogame machine that keeps playing the same very loud, very
annoying car-chase tune. Soon we are joined by Dario and two girls I don’t know
very well. They chit-chat about last night’s party for a while, until Dario,
who is sitting next to me, starts telling me about the new Cultural Association
in Cavonno, of which he and the two girls are founding members. Sergio is also
participating, as an associate. And they’re always looking for “new members,
supporters, friends, visitors, whatever”. I gather that Dario has mainly
occupied himself with the Association ever since he moved back to Cavonno.

The association is organizing a big cultural event in
a fortnight which will include a flea market, a book fair, a photo exhibition,
film screenings, open-air theatre, street acrobatics. The theme is “Our Home
and Our Environment”. Most performers are locals, the photos concern
exclusively our region, all the books and films are Italian. “We want to boost
the self-confidence of the Cavonnese,” Dario explains, “because especially the
younger kids seem to be losing touch with their origins. They live here all
their lives without even appreciating it, they’re more concerned with American
culture and all that trash.” I’m rather puzzled by Dario’s self-righteous
criticism of today’s youngsters, as if we had ever been a model of local pride.
I can’t remember having felt any particular connection to Cavonno as a
geographical and historical place. I just lived here and dreamed of all the
nicer places I could go to. Still, I agree to participate in the association’s
meeting tomorrow evening – although I’m not sure why I should bother at all. Is
it only an excuse to be around Dario, a desperate attempt to find something
that might unite us?

“That’s great,” Dario says, “we could really use an
outsider’s perspective.” Then he laughs somewhat awkwardly. “Of course I didn’t
mean that you’re an outsider, you’re one of us… But you can bring in some of
your experiences from abroad, we want our association to reach out beyond
Cavonno, too.” At this point Sergio disagrees, claiming that the aim isn’t to
sell Cavonno like another cheap tourist attraction to bored, fat, rich
Americans. In fact, he says, the association should be bold enough to defend an
anti-American stance, since “those bastards are ruining the planet and taking
everyone down with them”. And that includes the Canadians, too, Sergio says. A
discussion ensues on whether it is correct for members, associates, visitors
and whatever to publicly state political views. One of the girls, called Laura,
vehemently opposes Sergio, she doesn’t have anything against the Americans or
any other nation on the planet – “we should be striving for global communion,
not separatism!” Dario tries to adopt a diplomatic position, saying that the
association should be able to embrace both opinions. Everybody gets really
excited and raises their voices, which finally manage to drown out the music
from the videogame machine. From where I’m sitting, I get a good view of Fly’s
heart. I start counting the pipes.

After a while the group gets bored by all the
commotion. Dario challenges Sergio to a videogame football match – the loser
has to roll a joint afterwards. The two girls and I are kindly invited to
watch. Laura and Dario seem to exchange a few flirting glances and when he gets
up, she follows him closely. It doesn’t bother me, I’m rather embarrassed,
actually. I decide to stay behind at the table with the other girl, whose name
is Georgia. She’s in her early twenties and is studying journalism in Bologna.
She tells me about her plans to work on television, hosting serious political
debates. Georgia thinks that people aren’t really aware of the possibilities of
democracy. “Especially the young nowadays are so apathetic, they let the
government get away with anything.” So she hopes to raise people’s
consciousness in the future. She asks me if I have ever voted in an election
and I say “No”. “See, that’s exactly the kind of attitude that needs to be
changed,” Georgia says, “otherwise we’ll endanger the whole democratic system.
And you wouldn’t want to live in a dictatorship, would you?” I nod silently.
The techno version of “It’s a Wonderful World” starts playing and Georgia hums
along. I get up and leave.

***

Time to kill, that’s all life comes down to. Now that
I’m back in Cavonno, I realize I’ve never done anything but hanging out,
waiting for something to happen. Expecting other people to distract me from my
own feelings of utter boredom and uselessness. It worked relatively well, I
can’t complain. Every day I repeated the same routine of going out, getting
high, talking about nothing, getting tired, going to bed. I just don’t
understand why this is not enough now. Why every minute is so painfully long.

Outside Sottomondo is a concrete arcade, it’s
cosily dark at this time. Usually there are several kids hanging out and
smoking, but at the moment it’s empty. I lean against the wall and watch the
cars and people passing on the main street. It all looks so neat, as if
everyone had a clear aim and purpose. Even if they’re just going round in
circles.

And voilá, my inner enemy, the crying fit, finally
catches up with me. I can feel it building up already. Yes, that would be just
the thing, to break down in the centre of Cavonno, for all people to see my
self-inflicted misery. I start walking really fast, steering myself towards the
old train station, way over at the southern edge of town.

Once I’m past the downtown cafés and bars and
restaurants and the municipal park, I actually start feeling better. There’s
nobody in the street but me. I slow down to look at the partially dilapidated
houses and businesses lined up in a dull fashion along what was once a lively
cobblestone road with a neat pavement in the middle separating two broad lanes,
plus rows of trees and benches. That was before the train station closed, in
the early nineties. Now there’s a new bus terminal at the centre with several
good bus connections to all the big cities.

Down here nothing much is happening anymore. Except
occasionally at the station itself, of course, which has been re-appropriated
by the kids, the junkies and one or the other bum. The place is dark and quiet,
ideal for the kind of secret activities favoured by these groups. You can sit
on the edge of the platform and watch the moon and the stars. You can even follow
the overgrown rail in either direction, if you don’t mind getting a bit
entangled in the weeds. On the outer walls of the station are old, washed-out
posters of Cavonno showing the municipal hall, the church, the river. There’s
also a picture of the municipal hospital, a very modern-looking building from
the eighties, with an inscription reading “The Future is in Cavonno!” The
deterioration of the posters gives the images a strange appeal, as if they were
from a very distant past. There’s a faint smell of urine coming from the public
toilets. And shards of glass here and there.

Alone at the station, I jump down from the platform, cross the rails and
walk over to a big empty open workshop where they once kept all kinds of
machinery connected to the railway. I sit down at the entrance, look up at the
sky and then in both directions. Finally I start crying. It feels good.